Blogito ergo sum! Actually, as N.T. Wright averred, "'Amor, ergo sum:' I am loved, therefore I am." Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic deacon. This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Expectation, desire, hope

A long note I took in class this week apropos of nothing:

I have to distinguish my desire from my expectations.
Even when realized, my expectations don't completely satisfy my desire- desire remains
Desire is that in me which corresponds to God's grace.
Desire is what responds to God's initiative towards me.
One way to understand this is to see very self as desire; a longing for fulfillment.

Quite often my expectations are not met.
This leads to disappointment, but a different kind than when my expectations are met.
Dissatisfaction and disappointment are the fertile soil in which hope can grow.
Just as death is necessary for resurrection, travail and suffering are necessary for hope.

This an update. On reflecting further on this, it occurred to me that years ago there was a song I turned to whenever I felt like this. I was glad to rediscover it today. It seems fitting at the end of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

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I am husband and Dad to six lovely children. I am also a Roman Catholic deacon of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. I married in 1993, became a Dad for the first time in 1994 and most recently in 2011 (quite a spread). I was was ordained in 2004. After serving as a deacon for 11 years at The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City (8 years before I was ordained for a total of 19 years), I am now assigned to St Olaf's Parish in Bountiful, Utah. I am a graduate of the University of Utah and the Institute in Pastoral Ministry at St. Mary's University of Minnesota. I am currently a candidate for a Doctorate in Ministry (D.Min) at Mount Angel Seminary, Oregon.

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Madeleine Delbrêl

"We fashion the immortal being we are through our choices. Through our choices we bring the man in us to the fullness of life or to the worst of human suffering. At the hour of his death each human being has become either a person who will live with God forever, or who will be without God forever" Madeleine Delbrêl

St. Paul

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:1-2)

C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one'” Lewis

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"It is not the sins of weakness, but the sins of strength that matter" Bonhoeffer